The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see
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The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see resource for landlubbers and mariners alike.

Carol Gafford is a public librarian, family historian, amateur archivist and book savior. She is currently the youth services/outreach librarian at the Swansea Public Library and volunteers for several museum and historical societies including the Marine Museum at Fall River, the Swansea Historical Society and the Bristol Historical and Preservation society. She is the editor of Past Times, the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists and is always looking for a new project to take on.

However you looked at it, as Los Angeles roots/punk band X's 35th anniversary tour, or as "Guitarslingers' Ball," as the East Coast portion is called, last night's concert at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston was a memorable blast of six-string fury. Joining X on this leg of their year-long tour is the Reverend Horton Heat, the singer guitarist who might well be considered the man who put the pyscho into "psychobilly."

The end result was a wild night where the tempos seldom veered below ferocious, and the volume never dipped below thunderous, but the near-capacity crowd of about 900 fans (three-quarters of them dressed in black, naturally) yelped, pogoed and generally howled through a raucous good time.

X was a bit of an anomaly for a punk rock band, with the sensitive songwriter John Doe and his poet girlfriend/future wife Exene Cervenka penning the lyrics, and former Gene Vincent sideman Billy Zoom providing some stellar 1950's-style guitar, while drummer DJ Bonebrake framed it all in pulverizing primal rock rhythms. The quartet known as X began in 1977, and had mediocre record sales in their early years, to the point where Zoom quit in 1986. Various other versions of the band soldiered on into the early '90s before Doe and Cervenka (who eventually divorced) set out on solo careers. X hasn't released an album of new music since 1993, but they did begin reuniting for occasional tours within the past decade. A couple years back, Pearl Jam had them open an entire South American tour, and so the foursome has gradually gotten into regular tours every year.

This year's edition is the X-35 Tour, spanning all 12 months. X still hasn't put out any new music (although Doe and Cervenka's solo projects continue to be successful), and the current tour mostly focuses on music from their first heyday, covering their first four albums, roughly 1979-83.

It's not like the volume for the Reverend Horton Heat was exactly low, but the level for X was crushingly high. That did a lot for the basic punk rock intensity of the evening, and the mind-blowing aspects of Zoom's guitar playing, but not so much for the vocals, which were often indecipherable in the din. That's unfortunate because X's lyrics are often deep and poetic, with the frequent irony of things not being what they seem. X performed a 90-minute set that managed to cram at least 25 songs in.

Without a word of introduction, X opened with the ferocious punk rock power of "Your Phone's Off the Hook, But You're Not," sort of shocking the crowd into attention. As the night progressed Doe and Cervenka would alternate lead vocals. A bit later things had slowed just a tad for the more rootsy "Some Other Time," where it was more obvious that Zoom was playing some stellar rockabilly-style licks, which only seem punky because of the volume and speed these songs demand.

Doe, 58, was his usual natty Californian self, in brown Western shirt, while Cervenka, 56, had a black floor-length dres on that swirled as she danced around the microphone. Bonebrake pounded away in his sleeveless tee-shirt like someone on their way to a triathlon. Zoom was Mr. Cool, standing stage-left in his bowling shirt, with his monogrammed guitar strap supporting his silver flake axe, sporting a beatific grin and occasionally making eyes at front row females. Zoom might be the oldest member of X, but probably looks the youngest, and that constant placid grin looks almost maniacal after a while.

When X did the old '50's hit "Breathless," it took on a whole new level of anxiety in Cervenka's raw vocal. Moments later their own "We're Desperate" had her portraying that sort of jagged emotion again, as the melody, via Zoom's guitar lines, went off in quirky directions. Dedicating a song to hometowns everywhere, X did a lusty version of their own "Los Angeles," which has been kind of a theme song for them since their debut album way back when.

Bonebrake's fire-and-fury drums propelled "The Hungry Wolf," as Zoom again created sizzling rockabilly-based licks at warp speed, when he wasn't re-creating surf rock licks--the man is seriously underrated as a guitarist. Amid all that pell mell thunder, there was still a superb melody to "The New World," where the unusual, but unforgettable, blend of Doe's and Cervenka's vocals sounded as striking as in their younger days. It was too bad those moments were too few Sunday night, because they were just too often drowned out in the soundmix.

X's continuing influence could be heard in their old mini-hit "White Girl," which sounded as if it could be new wave/alt-country, delivered with punk-rock power. Doors covers might sound like an unlikely vehicle for X, but since Ray Manzarek produced their first album, they've always done a few. "Soul Kitchen" certainly framed the old Doors tune in a new light, with the full bore tempo and pounding rhythms.

X did a five-song encore segment, starting with a Doe-Cervenka acoustic duet, where even the acoustic guitar was so loud it obscured their vocals. The full band returned for a full-on charge through "The Once Over Twice," and then a moody downshift into "Blue Spark." Zoom's guitar shot out shards of bent notes and sustained tones as the night ended in the pounding inferno of "Devil Doll."

Reverend Horton Heat, actually Dallas, Texas native Jim Heath, has been at the forefront of the new corps of rockabilly, particularly those known as psychobilly or punkabilly, which meld in punky elements with the traditional style. Heat has a couple of big advantages over most of his competition, in that he's a world class guitarist who can unleash incredible licks, and he writes songs that are both modern and usually humorous. It's always a plus when a virtuoso doesn't take himself too seriously.

Heat and his trio did a 45-minute set Sunday that was loud but not oppressive, so that the wit within his tunes didn't get lost. His tongue-in-cheek salute to his bassist "J.I.M.B.O." was an early delight, and by the time Heat launched into "Party in Your Head" he was playing his guitar solo while perched atop Jimbo Wallace's big acoustic bass, as Wallace bent over to play it.

Heat definitely leaned towards his more punky side Sunday, no doubt a good move given the audience. His "Indigo Friends" was as potent a thunderous rocker as anything X would later play, with the added bonus of being able to hear what he was singing. Heat did a song off his newest CD, and while we wouldn't suggest "Drinkin' and Smokin' Cigarettes" as healthy advice, it was a lively tune in the traditional rockabilly style. Just to mix things up, Heat switched to bass while Wallace took over guitar and sang Chuck Berry's timeless chestnut "Johnny B. Goode," but of course their version was at hyper-speed.

Many of us could no doubt relate to Heat's stop-and-start rockabilly portrait of his "Four Hundred Dollar Car." The fast paced traditional rockabilly feel of "Bales of Cocaine" provided the foundation for a picaresque tale of mystery and misadventure. Heat's exuberant "Big Red Rocket of Love" was an apt number to showcase his band, with drummer Scott Churilla and Wallace providing sizzling solos, before the leader interjected a neat "Folsom Prison Blues" in classic Johnny Cash style, before bringing it all home by returning to "Big Red Rocket of Love's" chorus of "let's go!"

X still packs a heckuva wallop, but we'd also like to see a headlining show from the rowdy Rev.